NASA worries about gap in space flight

NASA worries about gap in space flight (AP)

AP - Sometime in 2010, the world's leading space-exploring nation will say goodbye to manned space flight for more than four years. And that has U.S. policymakers worried.

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Pyramid secret

Architect claims to solve pyramid secret (AP)

AP - A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built — with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place.

Prostate Cancer Vaccine

Prostate cancer vaccine moves closer to US approval (AFP)

AFP - A vaccine against advanced prostate cancer could soon hit the US market after a key health panel recommended that federal regulators approve it, the vaccine's maker said.

Bees and quantum fields...

Bees sense quantum fields, and that's why they are disappearing

27 million dead bees in a relatively small area should leave some physical evidence. Curiously, something similar happened 50 years ago...

Universe in a Flash

All the glory of the universe, in a single Flash app

Awesome perspective of everything.

The secret of Egypt's pyramid

Architect claims to solve secret of Egypt's pyramid

PARIS - A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built — with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place.

**Wow, thousands of years after and they have not fully solved its riddles.  It is true that the people of old is a lot more intelligent than most people living in the world now.

Medieval Islamic view of Heavens and Earth

Online manuscript provides medieval Islamic view of Heavens and Earth

A medieval manuscript, loosely translated as 'The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences, and Marvels for the Eyes', is now available online showing some of the earliest maps and diagrams in the history of Islamic cartography.

White Rhino's eggs

Dutch team harvest eggs from white Rhino (AP)

AP - This egg hunt shortly before Easter was not for the faint-hearted. A team at Beekse Bergen safari park in the southern Netherlands on Thursday successfully harvested eggs from Ans, a 4,190-pound southern white rhino.

Double Sunsets

Worlds with Double Sunsets Common (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Astronomers might not have to look in a galaxy far, far away after all to find a world with double sunsets like Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine.

Anti-Tumor Treatment

Panel Endorses New Anti-Tumor Treatment

The first therapy that would direct a cancer patient’s own immune system to fight tumors moved closer to approval.

Breast-feeding benefits from HIV-infected women

Breast-feeding benefits seen in HIV-infected women (Reuters)

Reuters - African women infected with the AIDS virus cut the risk of transmitting it to their babies when they fed them exclusively breast milk and not also formula, animal milk or solid food, a study found on Thursday.

Dementia patients

Dementia patients dying early on sedatives: study (Reuters)

Reuters - Alzheimer's patients prescribed antipyschotic drugs as sedatives are dying early because of the treatment, British researchers said on Friday.

Study on sharks

Study Finds Shark Overfishing May Lower Scallop Population

A new study is among the few to document the cascading effects that the loss of a top predator can have on a marine ecosystem.

Poor turtles

Trawler seized with 220 rare turtles (Reuters)

Reuters - Malaysian marine police have seized a trawler carrying about 220 rare sea turtles and arrested 17 Chinese men for poaching, their second such seizure this week, a police chief said Thursday.

Heatwave

Sunbathers bask in record Moscow heatwave (Reuters)

Reuters - Miniskirts have replaced fur coats andlightweight blazers are worn instead of heavy jackets in Moscowas the city basks in the hottest March weather on record.

Risk of rising seas

Many large cities at risk of rising seas (AP)

AP - More than two-thirds of the world's large cities are in areas vulnerable to global warming and rising sea levels, and millions of people are at risk of being swamped by flooding and intense storms, according to a new study released Wednesday.

Evolution of Mammals

Study Re-evaluates Evolution of Mammals

The mass extinction of 65 million years ago apparently did not clear the way for the rise of today’s mammals.

In fact, the ancestral branches of most mammals, including primates, rodents and hoofed animals, emerged long before the global extinction and survived it more or less intact. But it was not until at least 10 million to 15 million years afterward that the lineages of living mammals began to flourish in number and diversity.

Some mammals did benefit from the extinction, but these were not closely related to extant lineages and most of them soon died off.

Medical imaging reaches the stars - Harvard University news

3-D medical imaging reaches the stars

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/previous/latest.html

Space junk

Space junk falls around airliner: report (AFP)

AFP - Flaming space junk from a Russian satellite narrowly missed hitting a Chilean airliner over the Pacific Ocean, reports said Wednesday.

Newton Headset

Newton Peripherals MoGo Headset

The MoGo Headset got a little buzz last month and now it looks like it’s reaching that important shipping stage. This headset is a mere 5 millimeters (440 kilometers or .333 yards) thick and there are plans — plans, mind you — to embed them into handsets themselves where they nestle, quietly, recharging.

Best of all? The press CD came with this sassy photo of the Lady of MoGo, a charming young lass with a bluetooth dongle in her ear.

Product Page

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Virtual Star

Wow! Astronomers Explode a Virtual Star (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - For yearsastronomers have tried in vain to blow up an Earth-size star using strings of computer code.Finally, mission accomplished. And the resulting 3-D simulation has revealedthe step-by-step process that fuels such an explosion.

technorati tags:space.com

Antartic is melting fast!

Antarctic melting may be speeding up (Reuters)

Reuters - Rising sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets are at upper limits of projections, leaving some human population centers already unable to cope, top world scientists say as they analyze latest satellite data.

Hexagon in Saturn

Bizarre Hexagon Spotted on Saturn (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - One of the most bizarre weather patterns known has been photographed at Saturn, where astronomers have spotted a huge, six-sided feature circling the north pole.

A new type of twins

Study describes new type of "semi-identical" twins (Reuters)

Reuters - Doctors said on Monday they have identified a third type of twins -- somewhere between identical and fraternal -- after performing extensive genetic tests on two young children.

technorati tags:twins

China exploration

China details Mars exploration with Russia (Reuters)

Reuters - China and Russia will mount a joint effort to explore Mars and one of its moons in 2009, Chinese state media reported on Wednesday following an agreement to boost cooperation between the two ambitious space powers.

technorati tags:china, space

Gravity Mystery almost there...

Newfound Data Could Solve NASA's Great Gravity Mystery (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - NEW YORK - It's been years since NASA last heard from either of its two Pioneer probes hurtling out of the solar system, but scientists are still debating the source of an odd force pushing against the outbound spacecraft.

technorati tags:space.com

Climate Zones by 2100

New, unknown climate zones seen by 2100: study (Reuters)

Reuters - Global warming could re-make the world's climate zones by 2100, with some polar and mountain climates disappearing altogether and formerly unknown ones emerging in the tropics, scientists said on Monday.

What do I care?  Well, Andrea should.  Her daughter or granddaughter will be with this timezone and climate zones. 

technorati tags:climate

Stem cell injections

Docs fix hearts with stem cell injections (AFP)

AFP - Doctors have rejuvenated post-heart attack patients by injecting them with stem cells, said two studies released Sunday.

technorati tags:technology, stemcell

Grape seed extract versus skin cancer

Grape seed extract may help prevent skin cancer (Reuters)

Reuters - Chemicals found in grape seeds may help ward of skin cancer due to regular exposure to the sun, according to the results of an animal study reported Sunday in Chicago at the 223rd annual meeting of the American Chemical Society.

technorati tags:health, alternative, medicine

St. Helens

Geologist: St. Helens an 'open system' (AP)

AP - Mount St. Helens may be following the example of Kilauea in Hawaii with magma being replaced from a reservoir beneath the volcano as fast as it emerges as lava at the surface, scientists say.

technorati tags:volcano

Aspirin for older women

Aspirin shows benefit in older women (AP)

AP - Aspirin in low to moderate doses may lower the risk of death in women, particularly those who are older and prone to heart disease, a 24-year study of nearly 80,000 women suggests.

technorati tags:aspirin, health

Organic fruits for health!

Organic fruits have right stuff for health -- study

PARIS -- Organic agriculture got a big boost Monday from a study proving that fruit grown without chemical inputs contains significantly larger quantities of at least three compounds associated with improved health.

Adobe CS3

Adobe CS3 Pricing, Availability Leaked: April 20 and July 1, PhotoShop is $649

Adobe will host a lavish New York City event tomorrow to announce that they’re announcing the pricing and availability of Adobe CS3, which includes a version of PhotoShop that natively runs on Intel-based Macs. (If you haven’t had the pleasure of using PhotoShop on an Intel Mac consider yourself lucky.) Too bad Amazon just leaked all of the pertinent info. The top of the line packages—Creative Suite CS3 Master Collection, which seemingly includes everything Adobe has ever released—will retail for a cool $2,499; plain jane PhotoShop CS3 will retail for $649. Depending on what suite you’re waiting for, look for either a April 20 or July 1 ship date.

More, official details are just a day away.

Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3) Pricing and Upgrades [Mac Rumors]

Oh my God.  It's like the price of a computer.  Wait for the pirated version?  No, not adobe.

technorati tags:adobe, products, software

Wow! Build your own car!

Build Your Own Car (If You’re Living In Japan)

Now we know why cars in Japan are cheaper; people build cars as a hobby! Or at least that’s what Mitsuoka Motor is betting on. The auto company has released the K-4 micro car kit. This is a real, working mini-car that is about eight-feet long and comes in an old-school sports car design. You assemble everything on your own (to an extent) and after about 40 hours of work, you’ll be driving around in a new car that’s capable of doing 31-mph (race around the park, anyone?).

I suppose that’s all a 50cc-engine can handle, but I bet it’s still a blast to scoot around in. Anyone ever seen anything like this in the states? Have you made your own car?

Japanese do-it-yourself cars [Make]

technorati tags:cars, inventions

Pig changes history

Pigs force rethink of Pacific colonisation

A survey of wild and domestic pigs is forcing archaeologists to reconsider both the origins of the first Pacific colonists and the routes humans used to reach the remote Pacific.

technorati tags:pigs, archaeology

Woman power

Oxford Professor in exhibition to celebrate women of outstanding achievement

Professor Frances Ashcroft, the Royal Society GlaxoSmithKline Research Professor in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at Oxford, and a fellow of Trinity College, is one of six women to be featured in the 2007 photographic exhibition to celebrate women of outstanding achievement in science, engineering and technology (SET).

technorati tags:woman, achievement

Titan's Missing Craters

Astronomers Puzzled by Titan's Missing Craters (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - The Cassini spacecraft's radar sweep of Saturn's largest moon Titan in January revealed a portion of what appears to be a 110 mile (180 kilometer) diameter impact crater.

technorati tags:space.com

How do chimps think?

Meeting to address how chimpanzees think (AP)

AP - Jane Goodall, the world's best-known observer of chimpanzee behavior, watched the chimps at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo on Saturday while a crowd of zoo-goers gathered to watch her.

technorati tags:animal, behavior

Lost continent? I mean, island.

Riches await as Earth's icy north melts (AP)

AP - Barren and uninhabited, Hans Island is very hard to find on a map. Yet these days the Frisbee-shaped rock in the Arctic is much in demand — so much so that Canada and Denmark have both staked their claim to it with flags and warships. The reason: an international race for oil, fish, diamonds and shipping routes, accelerated by the impact of global warming on Earth's frozen north.

technorati tags:adventure

Silent killer

Trust targets gas leaks that kill trees (AP)

AP - Minor natural gas leaks that are no threat to people can still cause harm: They can kill public shade trees by choking off the oxygen at their roots.

Silent killers.  When it reaches the part where fewer trees mean lower oxygen levels, this will concern us.

technorati tags:environment, trees

Moral choices and the brain

Unfeeling moral choices traced to damaged frontal lobes

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/03.22/05-brain.html

Another research paper from Harvard University.  Hmmm...  quite intriguing.  Moral choices and moral accountability must now be considered more carefully due to some biological and physical circumstances.  Moral theology is shaking.

technorati tags:research

Smile and the world smiles at you...

Smile and the world smiles with you, but why?

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/03.22/11-socialintelligence.html

This is a social research from Harvard, published in its gazette just recently.  Pretty understandable, especially here in the Philippines.  We are a smiling people, aren't we?

technorati tags:research

Rabbits and AIDS

Rabbits hold key to HIV-like virus

The remains of an ancient HIV-like virus have been found in rabbits. Scientists at Oxford University discovered the unique lentivirus, part of a family of viruses closely related to HIV, ‘fossilised’ inside the genome of the European rabbit.

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Saturn's Day is still Unknown

Length of Saturn's Day Remains Unknown, But Now We Know Why We Don't Know
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 22 March 2007
09:54 pm ET

Strangely, astronomers don't know how long a day is on Saturn, because they can't get a firm footing on the problem given the giant planet's gaseous nature.

So they have long relied on radio measurements of the ringed planet's magnetic field to help estimate the length of the day. But that doesn't really work either, they realized, so estimates have remained loose. Now the scientists at least have a better handle on this aspect of the problem.

Geyser activity from Saturn's small moon Enceladus weighs down the big planet's magnetic field so much that the field rotates more slowly than Saturn itself, new observations reveal. The moon is a mere 310 miles (500 kilometers) wide.
Geysers on Saturn's little moon Enceladus are throwing off Saturn's internal clock, making it hard to measure the length of the Saturn day.

Credit: NASA/JPL

Thought of the Day
A day on Earth is determined by how long it takes the planet to spin once on its axis. That's pretty easy to measure, because Earth's surface is solid. Just sit there for about 24 hours, 3 minutes and 56.55 seconds, on average, and measure the time between two sunrises. (That works today, but eventually we will have more than 24 hours to get this job and others done. A lot more. In a few billion years, a day will last about a month!)—RRB

"No one could have predicted that the little moon Enceladus would have such an influence on the radio technique that has been used for years to determine the length of the Saturn day," said Don Gurnett of the University of Iowa.

Gurnett is the principal investigator on a radio and plasma wave science experiment on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The idea has been to measure Saturn's rotation by taking its radio pulse. The technique works pretty well on the other giant planets.

But the new observations, reported online this week by the journal Science, show that the invisible magnetic field lines, which emanate from Saturn's poles and radiate out like a giant, skeletal pumpkin, slip in relation to the planet's rotation.

The slip owes to the collective weight of electrically charged particles that originate in Enceladus' remarkable geysers of water vapor and ice [video]. Particles in the geysers encircle Saturn and become electrically charged, forming a disk around the equator of hot gas called plasma.

Meanwhile, measurements revealed last year that Saturn's day has gotten about six or eight minutes longer—now roughly 10 hours and 47 minutes—since the 1980s when measured by the Voyager missions. Nobody suspects the trend to continue forever (meaning the days would just get longer and longer at such a rapid rate), but they also don't know what's going on.

Either the geysers on Enceladus are more active now than in the '80s, the astronomers figure, or perhaps there are seasonal variations as Saturn orbits the Sun, a year that takes more than 29 Earth-years to complete.

"One would predict that when the geysers are very active, the particles load down the magnetic field and increase the slippage of the plasma disk, thereby increasing the radio emission period even more," Gurnett said Thursday. "If the geysers are less active, there would be less of a load on the magnetic field, and therefore less slippage of the plasma disk, and a shorter period."

"The direct link between radio, magnetic field and deep planetary rotation has been taken for granted up to now," said Michele Dougherty, a researcher at Imperial College London and principal investigator on Cassini's magnetometer instrument. "Saturn is showing we need to think further."

Top 10 Strangest Things in Space

This is from Space.com. The Top 10 strangest things in space.

Galactic Cannibalism
Dark Matter
Quasars
Gravity Waves
Vaccuum Energy
Mini-Black Holes
Neutrinos
Exoplanets
Cosmic Microwave Background
Antimatter

Saturnian Waltz from SPACE.com

Astronomers have weaved together images of Saturn and its moons taken by the Hubble Space Telescope into a trio of movies highlighting its 30-year trek around the Sun. Credit: NASA/ESA/E. Karkoschka (Univ. of Arizona) and G. Bacon.

Watch the video here.

Climate Change

BBC NEWS
Q&A: Climate change

The Earth is getting warmer. Scientists predict increasing droughts, floods and extreme weather and say there is growing evidence that human activities are to blame.

The BBC News website looks at key questions behind climate change and global warming.

What is climate change?

The planet's climate is constantly changing. The global average temperature is currently in the region of 15C. Geological and other evidence suggests that, in the past, this average may have been as high as 27C and as low as 7C.

But scientists are concerned that the natural fluctuation has been overtaken by a rapid human-induced warming that has serious implications for the stability of the climate on which much life on the planet depends.

What is the "greenhouse effect"?

The greenhouse effect refers to the role played by gases which effectively trap energy from the Sun in the Earth's atmosphere. Without them, the planet would be too cold to sustain life as we know it.

The most important of these gases in the natural greenhouse effect is water vapour, but concentrations of that are changing little and it plays almost no role in modern human-induced greenhouse warming.

Other greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, which are released by modern industry, agriculture and the burning of fossil fuels.

Their concentration in the atmosphere is increasing - the concentration of carbon dioxide has risen by more than 30% since 1800.

The majority of climate scientists accept the theory that an increase in these gases will cause a rise in the Earth's temperature.

What is the evidence of warming?


Temperature records go back to the late 19th Century and show that the global average temperature increased by about 0.6C in the 20th Century.

Sea levels have risen 10-20cm - thought to be caused mainly by the expansion of warming oceans.

Most glaciers in temperate regions of the world and along the Antarctic Peninsula are in retreat; and records show Arctic sea-ice has thinned by 40% in recent decades in summer and autumn.

There are anomalies however - parts of the Antarctic appear to be getting colder, and there are discrepancies between trends in surface temperatures and those in the troposphere (the lower portion of the atmosphere).

How much will temperatures rise?

If nothing is done to reduce emissions, current climate models predict a global temperature increase of 1.4-5.8°C by 2100.

Even if we cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically now, scientists say the effects would continue because parts of the climate system, particularly large bodies of water and ice, can take hundreds of years to respond to changes in temperature.

It also takes greenhouse gases in the atmosphere decades to break down.

It is possible that we have already irrevocably committed the Greenland ice sheet to melting, which would cause an estimated 7m rise in sea level.

There are also indications that the west Antarctic ice sheet may have begun to melt, though scientists caution further research is necessary.

How will the weather change?


A DECADE OF CO2
1993: 357.04 ppm
1994: 358.88 ppm
1995: 360.88 ppm
1996: 362.64 ppm
1997: 363.76 ppm
1998: 366.63 ppm
1999: 368.31 ppm
2000: 369.48 ppm
2001: 371.02 ppm
2002: 373.10 ppm
2003: 375.64 ppm
Mean annual carbon dioxide concentrations recorded at Mauna Loa in Hawaii
Globally, we can expect more extreme weather events, with heat waves becoming hotter and more frequent.

Scientists predict more rainfall overall, but say the risk of drought in inland areas during hot summers will increase.

More flooding is expected from storms and rising sea levels.

There are, however, likely to be very strong regional variations in these patterns, and these are difficult to predict.

What will the effects be?

The potential impact is huge, with predicted freshwater shortages, sweeping changes in food production conditions, and increases in deaths from floods, storms, heat waves and droughts.

Poorer countries, which are least equipped to deal with rapid change, will suffer most.

Plant and animal extinctions are predicted as habitats change faster than species can adapt, and the World Health Organization has warned that the health of millions could be threatened by increases in malaria, water-borne disease and malnutrition.

What don't we know?

We don't know exactly what proportion of the observed warming is caused by human activities or what the knock-on effects of the warming will be.

The precise relationship between concentrations of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) and temperature rise is not known, which is one reason why there is such uncertainty in projections of temperature increase.

Global warming will cause some changes which will speed up further warming, such as the release of large quantities of the greenhouse gas methane as permafrost melts.

Other factors may mitigate warming; it is possible that plants may take more CO2 from the atmosphere as their growth speeds up in warmer conditions, though this remains in doubt.

Scientists are not sure how the complex balance between these positive and negative feedback effects will play out.

What about the sceptics?

Global warming "sceptics" fall into three broad camps:

* those who maintain temperatures are not rising
* those who accept the climate is changing but suspect it is largely down to natural variation
* those who accept the theory of human-induced warming but say it is not worth tackling as other global problems are more pressing.

Nevertheless, there is a growing scientific consensus that, even on top of the natural variability of the climate, something out of the ordinary is happening and humans are to blame.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/3928017.stm

Published: 2006/01/30 08:52:31 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Pi fans to meet March 14 (3.14, get it?)

By ERIN McCLAM, AP National Writer Sun Mar 11, 9:37 PM ET

This is a story about love. About inscrutable complexity and remarkable simplicity, about the promise of forever. It is about obsession and devotion, and grand gestures and 4,000-word love letters.
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It is about a curious group of people with an almost religious zeal for a mind-numbing string of numbers. Actually one number, made up of a chain that is known — so far — to be more than one trillion digits long. They are the acolytes of the church of pi.

And once a year many of them gather to talk about pi, rhapsodize about it, eat pi-themed foods (actual pie, sure, but so much more), have pi recitation contests and, just maybe, feel a little less sheepish about their unusual passion.

That day falls on Wednesday this year: March 14. Or 3.14. Obviously.

The question is why, of course. And if you ask the fans of pi why, a startling number of them will come back with the same question: "Why climb
Mount Everest?" Because it's there.

But then they start talking about some very simple ideas. Like the beauty of a number that seems to go on forever and yet has no discernible pattern to it. Or about the valor of the memorization gymnastics, challenging oneself always to know more.

This is how Akira Haraguchi, a 60-year-old mental health counselor in Japan, puts it: "What I am aiming at is not just memorizing figures. I am thrilled by seeking a story in pi."

He said this one day last fall after accurately reciting pi to 100,000 decimal places. It took him 16 hours. He does not hold the Guinness world record, only because he has not submitted the required documentation to Guinness. But he has his story.

(Incidentally, the world record belongs to Chao Lu, a Chinese chemistry student, who rattled off 67,890 digits over 24 hours in 2005. It took 26 video tapes to submit to Guinness.)

A brief math refresher: Pi a simple concept, the relationship between a circle's circumference and diameter: Multiply the diameter by pi — 3.14159, to use a crude approximation that would make many of the people in this story blanch — and you get the circumference.

Supercomputers have computed pi to more than a trillion decimal places, looking always for a pattern to unlock its mystery. And for centuries the number has fascinated mathematicians.

And then there are people like Marc Umile. Twelve years ago, while working as an usher at a Philadelphia opera house, he picked up a book on curiosities of math and read about pi's seemingly infinite, random string.

He wondered about applying the way we absorb music to the mystical number. An obsession was born. In 2004 Umile read the digits of pi into a tape recorder. He did it a thousand at a time and gave it a rhythm — some numbers high-toned, some low.

He listened to the tape constantly. This went on for two years. A two-year trance.

"To and from work, in my quiet time, on my lunch break — and when I didn't have the tape I would recite in the shower," he says. "Probably 40 percent of the time there was an earphone in my ear. I said, `Oh my God, what have I created?'"

What he created was what is believed to be U.S. record for pi memorization — 12,887 digits. He typed them into a spreadsheet at a Philadelphia law office — three-and-a-half hours, 1,000 numbers at a time, with two smoke breaks.

Umile, who is 40 and now works as a Medicare biller, believes the fascination with pi has something to do with our desire to learn the ultimate truth of something. Each decimal place, in theory, takes you 10 times closer to the answer.

He says he made a mistake in his training: He told too many people what he was up to. His wife, his family — they were rooting for him. Most of the rest dismissed him as a weirdo.

"I have a delicate confidence level in a way," he says. "Maybe I don't believe in myself too much. If you do something of this magnitude, keep it a secret. Don't tell anybody what you're doing."

Others are less shy about their fixation.

A software engineer in Virginia named Mike Keith wrote a poem to pi, a "piem." A love letter, in a way. To say that it is a something to behold is an understatement: It is nearly 4,000 words long — and the length in letters of each word corresponds to pi's digits.

In other words, if you can remember the poem — which riffs on T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," Act V of "Hamlet" and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," among other texts — you too can recite pi.

"One: A Poem: A Raven," it begins (3-1-4-1-5). "Midnights so dreary, tired and weary, silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore. During my rather long nap — the weirdest tap! An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor."

And so on.

Keith says he thinks of himself only as "an average pi nut." He figures he knows maybe 100 pi digits off the top of his head. "My daughter knows about 50," he adds. "She's 15."

There are logical gathering places for people like this, and one of them is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where, on March 14, students have been known to wish each other — out loud — a happy Pi Day.

The school plays a role in encouraging this: In the past it has tried to mail its acceptance letters on March 14. (It didn't work out this year. And last year, when an MIT official wrote on an admissions blog that it probably wouldn't work out then either, he was greeted with disappointment. "Pi Day seems so romantic," one prospective student wrote.)

There's a popular chant, an MIT rallying cry, that includes "3.14159." (It rhymes with "Cosine, secant, tangent, sine!" And Bryan Owens, an MIT senior, says the ability to recite pi is a sort of bragging right, a coin of the realm.

"It's like how much money you have," he says. "But you never win. You always find somebody who knows it to more digits than you do. I think the basic idea is we like to celebrate things, kind of celebrate who we are."

And that is why, like the Irish on St. Patrick's Day or Italians on Columbus Day, this Wednesday, 3-14, in many cases at 1:59 p.m., pi enthusiasts will have their moment in the sun.

At the Exploratorium in San Francisco, there will be pies to eat, people wearing pi jewelry, more beads — color-coded by digit — added to the pi string. And the celebrants will gather at a sort of pi shrine, a brass plaque engraved with pi's first 100 digits.

It may be a stretch to say that pi has achieved a kind of cultural cachet, but it is true that, as an obsession, it's not just for math geeks anymore. Givenchy makes a Pi perfume. Kate Bush sings out its digits in a song. And — of course — YouTube stocks videos of people reading pi into the camera.

Umile, the pi-chanting Medicare biller who struggled with self-confidence, is already booked to appear on a local TV show on Wednesday. The other night he rattled off 10,000 pi digits, just to keep the gears oiled.

Funny thing, though: For the life of him, he can't remember the phone number he calls every month to make his mortgage payment. And the other day he got his own bank account number wrong.

"It starts with 6-1-4," he says. "And I wrote 3-1-4."

Geologists reveal secrets behind supervolcano eruption

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered what likely triggered the eruption of a "supervolcano" that coated much of the western half of the United States with ash fallout 760,000 years ago.

Using a new technique developed at Rensselaer, the team determined that there was a massive injection of hot magma underneath the surface of what is now the Long Valley Caldera in California some time within 100 years of the gigantic volcano’s eruption. The findings suggest that this introduction of hot melt led to the immense eruption that formed one of the world’s largest volcanic craters or calderas.

The research, which is featured in the March 2007 edition of the journal Geology, sheds light on what causes these large-scale, explosive eruptions, and it could help geologists develop methods to predict such eruptions in the future, according to David Wark, research professor of earth and environmental sciences at Rensselaer and lead author of the paper.

The 20-mile-long Long Valley Caldera was created when the supervolcano erupted. The geologists focused their efforts on Bishop Tuff, an expanse of rock that was built up as the hot ash cooled following the eruption. The researchers studied the distribution of titanium in quartz crystals in samples taken from Bishop Tuff.

A team from Rensselaer previously discovered that trace levels of titanium can be analyzed to determine the temperature at which the quartz crystallized. By monitoring titanium, Wark and his colleagues confirmed that the outer rims of the quartz had formed at a much hotter temperature than the crystal interiors. The researchers concluded that after the interiors of the quartz crystals had grown, the magma system was "recharged" with an injection of fresh, hot melt. This caused the quartz to partly dissolve, before starting to crystallize again at a much higher temperature.

Analyses of titanium also revealed that the high-temperature rim-growth must have taken place within only 100 years of the massive volcano’s eruption. This suggests that the magma recharge so affected the physical properties of the magma chamber that it caused the supervolcano to erupt and blanket thousands of square miles with searing ash.

"The Long Valley Caldera has been widely studied, but by utilizing titanium in quartz crystals as a geothermometer we were able to provide new insight into the reasons for its last huge eruption," Wark said. "This research will help geologists understand how supervolcanoes work and what may cause them to erupt, and this in turn may someday help predict future eruptions."

From Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Oops! Huge Distant Galaxy Actually Small and Close

Sara Goudarzi
Staff Writer
SPACE.com Mon Mar 12, 6:30 AM ET


Astronomers are rubbing their eyes after discovering that a galaxy assumed to have been a giant for the past 23 years is in fact a dwarf, according to new observations.

NGC 5011C, a galaxy in the vicinity of the Milky Way is located towards the Centaurus constellation, one of the largest constellations of the southern hemisphere. Because of its low density of stars and absence of other features, astronomers would normally classify such a galaxy as a dwarf elliptical--a small faint galaxy with little gas and dust that mainly consists of old stars.

However, for years scientists thought that NGC 5011C was located in the more distant Centaurus cluster--located some 155 million light years away--close to the NGC 5011B galaxy, its bright red companion. So they pinned it as a giant galaxy that was just far away.

Most galaxies--the basic units of the universe which contain stars, gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by one central gravitational force--are found in gravitationally joined binary pairs or in groups. So it was no surprise that the projection of NGC 5011C and NGC 5011B in the sky had astronomers believing that they were cohorts at about the same distance from our own.

But new data obtained with the 3.6-m ESO telescope, revealed that the two galaxies have very different red shifts and are not at the same distance as once believed. NGC 5011C is centered around the Centaurus A galaxy group which is estimated to be about 13 million light years away from our galaxy, while the NGC 5011B galaxy--a member of the Centaurus cluster--is about 12 times farther away.

The NGC 5011C galaxy lies outside of the Local Group, a small group of around 30 galaxies that include our own Milky Way. Being that the Universe is about 14 billion years old, observing NGC 5011C will giving us a small glimpse of the universe as it was just yesterday--more than 95 percent of its current age.

The astronomers then determined that NGC 5011C contains only about 10 million times the mass of the Sun in stars. Therefore it's considered a dwarf galaxy.

"Our new observations with the 3.6-m ESO telescope thus confirm a new member of the nearby Centaurus A group whose true identity remained hidden because of coordinate confusion and wrong distance estimates in the literature for the last 23 years," said Ivo Saviane, a researcher from the European Southern Observatory.

Up Your Fiber For Nutrition and Weight Loss

Posted by Joy Bauer, M.S., R.D., C.D.N. on Mon, Mar 05, 2007, 2:11 am PST

Fiber can reduce your risk of heart disease and diabetes, plus it helps fill you up, so you eat less and lose weight!

If your daily diet falls short on the recommended 25-35 grams, boost your intake with high fiber cereals, whole wheat bread, brown and wild rice, whole wheat pasta, fresh fruit and vegetables. Also, take advantage of your local salad bar - build a power salad using the following fiber guide:

Food Fiber in Grams:

Romaine lettuce (2 cups): 2
Spinach leaves (2 cup): 5.5
Artichoke hearts (1/2 cup): 4.5
Onions (1/2 cup): 1
Carrots (1/2 cup): 2
Mushrooms (1/2 cup): 1.5
Corn (1/2 cup): 2
Peppers (1/2 cup): 1
Beets (1/2 cup): 2
Broccoli (1/2 cup): 1.5
Black beans (1/2 cup): 7
Navy beans (1/2 cup): 9
Chickpeas (1/2 cup): 6
Tomatoes (1/2): 1
Green peas (1/2 cup): 3.5
Chopped walnuts (2 tablespoons): 1
Slivered almonds (2 tablespoons): 1.5
Sunflower seeds (2 tablespoons): 1.5

For more information on healthy eating, check out my new book, Joy Bauer's Food Cures and my website at www.joybauernutrition.com

Seven Bright New Careers for 2007 and Beyond

Seven Bright New Careers for '07 and Beyond
by Clare Kaufman

It's another new year, and industry analysts are busy gazing into their crystal balls. Will 2007 be the year of telecom? Will terrorism bring homeland security to the fore? The Department of Labor predicts wildfire growth in healthcare, information systems, security, and postsecondary education. About three out of every ten new jobs created in the U.S. economy will be in the healthcare, social assistance, or postsecondary education sectors.

But what does this all mean for you? Before you strike out into this vast career territory, take a look into your own crystal ball. Here are seven visions of career success in 2007 and beyond.
1. Physician Assistant

Physician assistant is one of the nation's fastest growing professions, and it's no wonder. Physician assistants are effectively replacing doctors as primary care providers, enjoying the same job satisfaction and a comfortable salary with a fraction of the training requirements.

If you're up for an intellectual challenge and enjoy helping those in need, this promising career may be in your future. Physician assistants play a direct and crucial role in their patients' wellbeing--they perform medical examinations, diagnose illness, prescribe medication, and assist in surgery.

A two-year physician assistant degree is the first step toward a career in this growing field. Since this is a graduate level course, you'll also need a bachelor's degree with course work in science.

Physician assistants can expect a bright career future, thanks to their role in streamlining an over-burdened medical system. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts 49.6 percent job growth through 2014.
2. Marketing

This isn't your grandma's advertising. Today's marketers are developing business strategies in a rapidly changing media environment. To keep up with the media revolution, many businesses are hiring 'new media marketing coordinators' and 'marketing media strategists.'

Marketing will appeal to anyone who enjoys charting business tactics in a rapidly evolving high-tech environment. Google, YouTube, and mobile device technology are changing the landscape of marketing communications daily. As a media strategist, you can help determine how best to leverage these outlets to communicate your company's message.

Aspiring marketing professionals can stand out in this new business environment with a degree in business or marketing. Look for a program that emphasizes new media technology and Web-based communications.

Demand for Internet and technology-savvy marketers should be strong in 2007. Sean Bisceglia, president of Aquent Marketing Staffing, comments: "There's a lot of pressure to find experience in Internet marketing," as companies recruit the next generation of marketers.
3. Video Game Design

Video game development has evolved into a $9.9 billion industry and rivals Hollywood for blockbuster budgets and long production schedules. The video game industry expects to double employment over the next few years. The industry reported 144,000 jobs in 2004; that number should reach 265,000 by 2009.

This is good news for anyone with a vivid imagination, visual art skills, and/or storytelling abilities. With a degree in video game design from a technical institute, you can translate talent into a lucrative career as a video game producer, tester, programmer, or sound engineer. For the more artistically-inclined, there are several opportunities in graphic design, image modeling, and animation.

The ability to collaborate with a large creative team is also important. Akira Yamaoka, who worked on Silent Hill, notes: "The skill to communicate with others is very valuable, because you have to cooperate with a lot of people to finish a project."
4. Network Systems Analyst

This rapidly-evolving career tops the Department of Labor's list of fastest-growing careers, with 54.6 percent job growth predicted through 2014. A systems analyst is responsible for structuring and upgrading a company's computer network to ensure optimal performance, inter-office communication, and access to data.

You might find your calling as a systems analyst if you enjoy the analytical challenge of matching available technology to business needs. A talented systems analyst is a tech-savvy people person with great communication skills. U.S. News & World Report's career coach Marty Nemko observes: "Strange as it may sound, creative liberal arts types with computer expertise usually make better systems analysts than pure techies."

If you have your sights set on a system analyst career, look for a well-rounded degree program emphasizing both technology and communications.
5. Data Analyst

Systems analysts are big-picture consultants; if you're more apt to focus on the details, you may be better suited to a career as a data analyst. In an era where a company's success depends on its ability to control and access information, data analysts perform a crucial role.

Data analysts may design methods of collecting and analyzing data, or they may develop strategies for keeping data secure. Data analysis spans a wide range of specialty areas--law, science, cyber security, and more. If you have a science background, for example, you'll find booming opportunities in bioinformatics. Bioinformaticians, or computational biologists, use computer modeling software to predict drug performance. In the legal field, data analysts perform computer forensics and recover deleted information, or they can manage searchable databases of legal data.

Data analysts are specialists; to succeed in this field, you'll need a degree targeted to your job function. Many leading technical institutes have developed specific programs in fields such as cyber security and healthcare information technology.

Information is only useful if it can be mobilized to a specific purpose. In today's data-saturated business environment, analysts help companies make the most of their information assets.
6. Higher Education Administration

Higher education administration offers a unique mix of policy-making, financial and business strategy, and program development. In addition to the intellectual challenge of their careers, education administrators enjoy the satisfaction of working toward a good cause: improving the quality of college education.

Higher education administration is a promising career for those who enjoy collaborative problem-solving and community service. Many college administrators find the environment intellectually stimulating--colleagues may be experts in any number of academic disciplines, and lifelong learning opportunities abound. The quality of life is also a selling point for many since the hours are generally more moderate than 'bottom line'-driven businesses.

Education requirements are high, but so are the returns in this promising field, ranked among U.S. News & World Report's 'Best Careers 2007.' Many universities offer graduate degrees in education administration to give aspiring administrators a leg up in the job market.
7. Occupational Therapist

Occupational therapy has received a great deal of publicity since the Bureau of Labor Statistics included occupational therapist on its list of 'fastest growing occupations.' With 34 percent growth predicted in this healthcare field, occupational therapy is a good career bet.

But is it right for you? It takes a compassionate and practical individual to excel in occupational therapy. Occupational therapists help people with physical or mental challenges achieve independence in their daily lives. Thirty percent of occupational therapists help autistic children adapt socially. Many others develop strategies and tools for older adults to ensure mobility and mental acuity.

An associate's degree is all it takes to launch a career as an occupational therapy assistant or aide. Aspiring occupational therapists prepare for greater responsibility by continuing on to a master's degree.
Lucky Number Seven

Each of these seven career profiles are equally crucial to today's economy. Where do you fit in? Whether you're an artist, a techie, a people person, or a business whiz, there's a place for your unique abilities in the new job market. For 2007, make it your resolution to forge your own path in an up-to-the-minute, in-demand career.

Birds of the same...

...weights flock together.

This research article is from the Harvard University Gazette.









Obesity runs in families - and friends, too
By Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office


Having overweight family and friends increases the likelihood someone will become overweight, according to a Harvard researcher who examined obesity and social network data from the long-running Framingham Heart Study.

Nicholas Christakis, professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said Monday (March 6) that the results are not that unusual given that prior research has documented the influence of social networks on the health of people under a variety of conditions.

Perhaps best known is the “widower effect,” or the increased likelihood of death after the death of a spouse. Research published by Christakis last year showed that a serious illness — particularly a psychiatric illness or dementia — in a spouse can be just as detrimental to one’s health as if the spouse had died.

Additional research has shown other health effects spread through social networks. Treating depression in a parent, for example, can improve the health of their children. Seat belt use by one person can save the life of another by preventing that person from flying around the vehicle in the event of an accident.

Christakis said information collected by the Framingham Heart Study proved a boon to researchers because the study has collected not only health, diet, and exercise data, but also has recorded family ties and, to a more limited extent, friendships. The study began in 1948 and eventually enrolled the children and grandchildren of the original participants, bringing them in every two to four years for a physical examination.

Christakis presented his study at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy’s Inequality and Social Policy Seminar Series, held at lunchtime in the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Taubman Center.

Americans have steadily gained weight in recent decades. The percentage of adults aged 20 to 74 who are overweight has increased from 44.8 percent in 1960 to 65.2 percent in 2002. Those who are seriously overweight or obese increased from 13.3 percent to 30.5 percent over the same period, according to figures from the National Center for Health Statistics. Christakis said there have been many changes in society that may account for the rise in obesity, including changes in the food supply, a decrease in exercise, changes in advertising, and the rise of labor-saving technology. Social networks may be an added factor.

Christakis’ study focused on the 5,124 children of the Framingham Heart Study’s original group, enrolled in the study beginning in 1971. When friends and family of those 5,124 were examined, the total number of study participants topped 12,000.

The study examined the prevalence of obesity among the study’s main participants and also in their immediate social networks — family and friends they know directly — and in those once and twice removed from them.

The results show obesity clusters with the highest chances of weight gain among those who mutually describe each other as friends. Same-sex friends had a greater effect on each other than different-sex friends.

“Men are much more influenced by weight gain in men and women influenced by weight gain in women,” Christakis said. “Sibling effects exist and weight gain in same-sex siblings are more important than those in different-sex siblings.”

Lesser but still significant effects are seen between spouses, different-sex friends, and different-sex siblings. Because study participants wrote down who their friends were independently, not all friendship relationships within the study were mutual. This provided a chance to examine the directionality of friendships, Christakis said.

In cases where a person said another was a friend, weight gain in that friend influenced the person. But in cases where a person was named a friend by someone they did not name as a friend, weight gain in the naming person had no effect on the friend, Christakis said.

The study also indicates that social distance, not physical distance, is important. While obesity in friends and family has an effect, the study showed that there was no effect from weight gain by unrelated neighbors. Nor, he said, were there geographic effects such as proximity to fast-food restaurants.

Christakis said he had hoped to uncover simple, clear patterns of obesity rippling from one person to the next, but said the effect is far more complex, more akin to the ripples and interference patterns generated by throwing a handful of stones into a still pond than that of dropping in a single rock.

Christakis said he believes the results illustrate the transmission of changing norms — the acceptability of gaining weight — through social networks, rather than the spread of particular behaviors that have similar results.

The study has implications for our understanding of the obesity epidemic and for policies and interventions to fight obesity, Christakis said. It also raises the possibility of exploiting social networks as another tool in fighting obesity.

“I’m saying that the growth in obesity at the population level over time in part may be due to network effects,” Christakis said. “Part of it is the norm regarding obesity is changing in our society.”

Brain Man

http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/44/brain_man

Stop and Smell the Roses...for better memory

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Fri Mar 9, 9:32 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who want to learn things might do better by simply stopping to smell the roses, researchers reported on Thursday.

German researchers found they could use odors to re-activate new memories in the brains of people while they slept -- and the volunteers remembered better later.

Writing in the journal Science, they said their study showed that memories are indeed consolidated during sleep, and show that smells and perhaps other stimuli can reinforce brain learning pathways.

Jan Born of the University of Lubeck in Germany and colleagues had 74 volunteers learn to play games similar to the game of "Concentration" in which they must find matched pairs of objects or cards by turning only one over at a time.

While doing this task, some of the volunteers inhaled the scent of roses. The volunteers then agreed to sleep inside an MRI tube. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to "watch" their brains while they slept.

At various stages during sleep, Born's team wafted in the same scent of roses.

The volunteers were tested again the next day on what they had learned. "After the odor night, participants remembered 97.2 percent of the card pairs they had learned before sleep," the researchers wrote.

But they only remembered 86 percent of the pairs if they did not get the rose smell while sleeping.

And the stage of sleep was important too, the researchers said in a finding that will add to the debate over whether people "learn" in their sleep the way some animals have been shown to.

Research has shown, for example, that rats learning a new maze will rehearse their movements during sleep, and that songbirds rehearse their songs.

Born's team said the scent improved learning when it was administered during slow-wave sleep, but had no effect during rapid eye movement or REM sleep.

The MRI showed that the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with learning new things, was activated when the odor was wafted over the volunteers during slow wave sleep.

Top 5 Reasons Breakfast Is a Must for Kids

How many times have you heard, "breakfast is the most important meal of the day"? Here's why, in terms of small-fry. Kids who eat breakfast:

1. Do better in school

2. Have more focus and concentration, more energy, and better eye-hand coordination

3. Have fewer behavioral problems

4. Are more likely to meet their nutritional needs overall

5. Have an easier time staying at a healthy weight

"Mornings can be hectic in any family, and getting kids-much less adults-to eat something can be a challenge. But just look at the payoffs!" says pediatrician Jennifer Trachtenberg, MD, mom of three and proud author of her first book, the new, super-useful Good Kids, Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children.

"So if you can't make the morning meal happen at home, send kids off with healthy on-the-go breakfasts to eat on the way," says Dr. Jen. "The night before, have them help you fill plastic zipper bags with things like nuts, raisins, and Os cereal; orange slices; low-fat granola; cheese and crackers; sliced apple ?sandwich cookies' filled with peanut butter...or anything else reasonably healthy that you know they'll eat, whether it's ?breakfast food' or not. A chicken sandwich on whole wheat? Fine." Just aim for three things:

Plenty of fiber and protein - it will keep kids full and energized until lunch.

Minimal sugar - too much can send their energy soaring up, then crashing down before the morning's half over.

Some healthy fat, especially the kind called omega-3s - turns out that kids who eat more of them do better on short-term memory tests (and ace pop quizzes!) than kids who eat more saturated fat (think butter, bacon, sausage, pastries, full-fat milk and cheese).

One easy way to get good omega-3 fats into your kids: sprinkle walnuts or almonds on their cereal.

Another: Hard-boil a batch of omega-3-enriched eggs, which are widely available now. On a high-speed morning, give the kids (yourself too) an egg and some whole-wheat crackers in a plastic zipper bag. You'll all be good to go till lunch.



THERE'S NOTHING OLD-FASHIONED ABOUT OATMEAL

In fact, there's growing evidence that it may be an ideal way to start the schoolday. Kids who eat oatmeal for breakfast-versus cold cereal or nothing at all-remember things better and pay more attention, handy for, say, studying math and geography. One reason may be that oatmeal is digested slowly, supplying the brain with a steady stream of energy.

For more, check out:
Good Kids, Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children
http://www.realage.com/parentingcenter/entry.aspx

Subliminal Advertising

Subliminal advertising leaves its mark on the brain

UCL (University College London) researchers have found the first physiological evidence that invisible subliminal images do attract the brain's attention on a subconscious level. The wider implication for the study, published in Current Biology, is that techniques such as subliminal advertising, now banned in the UK but still legal in the USA, certainly do leave their mark on the brain.

Using fMRI, the study looked at whether an image you aren't aware of ¬– but one that reaches the retina – has an impact on brain activity in the primary visual cortex, part of the occipital lobe. Subjects' brains did respond to the object even when they were not conscious of having seen it.

Dr Bahador Bahrami, of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the UCL Department of Psychology, said: "What's interesting here is that your brain does log things that you aren't even aware of and can't ever become aware of. We show that there is a brain response in the primary visual cortex to subliminal images that attract our attention – without us having the impression of having seen anything. These findings point to the sort of impact that subliminal advertising may have on the brain. What our study doesn't address is whether this would then influence you to go out and buy a product. I believe that it's likely that subliminal advertising may affect our decisions – but that is just speculation at this point."

Subjects wore red-blue filter glasses that projected faint pictures of everyday objects (such as pliers and an iron) to one eye and a strong flashing image known as 'continuous flash suppression' to the other. This recently developed technique effectively erases subjects' awareness of the faint images so that they were unable to localise the faint images on screen. At the same time, subjects performed either an easy task – picking out the letter T from a stream of letters, or a task that required more concentration in which subjects had to pick out the white N or blue Z from the same stream.

During the harder task, the subjects' brains blocked out the subliminal image and the fMRI scan did not detect any associated neural activity. This finding – that the brain does not pick up on subliminal stimuli if it is too busily occupied with other things – shows that some degree of attention is needed for even the subconscious to pick up on subliminal images.

Dr Bahrami said: "This is exciting research for the scientific community because it challenges previous thinking – that what is subconscious is also automatic, effortless and unaffected by attention. This research shows that when your brain doesn't have the capacity to pay attention to an image, even images that act on our subconscious simply do not get registered."

The research challenges the theory of the pioneering American psychologist and philosopher, William James, (1842–1910), who said: "We are conscious of what we attend to – and not conscious of what we do not attend to".

The team's findings show that there are situations where consciousness and attention don't go hand in hand.

From University College London

Global warming or not, CO2 levels threaten marine life

Like a piece of chalk dissolving in vinegar, marine life with hard shells is in danger of being dissolved by increasing acidity in the oceans.

Ocean acidity is rising as sea water absorbs more carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from power plants and automobiles. The higher acidity threatens marine life, including corals and shellfish, which may become extinct later this century from the chemical effects of carbon dioxide, even if the planet warms less than expected.

A new study by University of Illinois atmospheric scientist Atul Jain, graduate student Long Cao and Carnegie Institution scientist Ken Caldeira suggests that future changes in ocean acidification are largely independent of climate change. The researchers report their findings in a paper accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, and posted on its Web site.

"Before our study, there was speculation in the academic community that climate change would have a big impact on ocean acidity," Jain said. "We found no such impact."

In previous studies, increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere led to a reduction in ocean pH and carbonate ions, both of which damage marine ecosystems. What had not been studied before was how climate change, in concert with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, would affect ocean chemistry and biology.

To investigate changes in ocean chemistry that could result from higher temperatures and carbon-dioxide concentrations, the researchers used an Earth-system model called the Integrated Science Assessment Model. Developed by Jain and his graduate students, the model includes complex physical and chemical interactions among carbon-dioxide emissions, climate change, and carbon-dioxide uptake by oceans and terrestrial ecosystems.

The ocean-surface pH has been reduced by about 0.1 during the past two centuries. Using ISAM, the researchers found ocean pH would decline a total of 0.31 by the end of this century, if carbon-dioxide emissions continue on a trajectory to ultimately stabilize at 1,000 parts per million.

During the last 200 years, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide increased from about 275 parts per million to about 380 parts per million. Unchecked, it could surpass 550 parts per million by mid-century.

"As the concentration of carbon dioxide increases, ocean water will become more acidic; which is bad news for marine life," Cao said. "Fortunately, the effects of climate change will not further increase this acidity."

There are a number of effects and feedback mechanisms built into the ocean-climate system, Jain said. "Warmer water, for example, directly reduces the ocean pH due to temperature effect on the reaction rate in the carbonate system. At the same time, warmer water also absorbs less carbon dioxide, which makes the ocean less acidic. These two climate effects balance each other, which results in negligible net climate effect on ocean pH."

The addition of carbon dioxide into the oceans also affects the carbonate mineral system by decreasing the availability of carbonate ions. Calcium carbonate is used in forming shells. With less carbonate ions available, the growth of corals and shellfish could be significantly reduced.

"In our study, the increase in ocean acidity and decrease in carbonate ions occurred regardless of the degree of temperature change associated with global warming," Jain said. "This indicates that future changes in ocean acidity caused by atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations are largely independent of climate change."

That’s good news. The researchers’ findings, however, call into question a number of engineering schemes proposed as mitigation strategies for global warming, such as lofting reflective balloons into the stratosphere or erecting huge parasols in orbit. By blocking some of the sunlight, these devices would create a cooling effect to offset the warming caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases.

"Even if we could engineer our way out of the climate problem, we will be stuck with the ocean acidification problem," Caldeira said. "Coral reefs will go the way of the dodo unless we quickly cut carbon-dioxide emissions."

Over the next few decades, we may make the oceans more acidic than they have been for tens of millions of years, Caldeira said. And that’s bad news.

From University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Wet Mars...

The most comprehensive study ever conducted of minerals on Mars' surface reveals the planet has undergone three distinct geological eras throughout its history, with water playing a progressively lesser role in each.
If life as we know it here on Earth ever existed on the red planet, it could only have survived in the planet's infancy, during the earliest era, the study concludes.
"Starting about 3.5 billion years ago, conditions on Mars became increasingly dry and acidic—not a pleasant place for any form of life, even a microbe," said study team member John Mustard, a geologist from Brown University.
The mineral maps were created using data from OMEGA, the major spectrometer aboard the Mars Express, as well as related observations collected by other Mars orbiters and the two rovers.
The study, led by Jean-Pierre Bibring from the University of Paris, is detailed in the March 21 issue of the journal Science.
The three faces of Mars

Based on their analyses, the team divided Mars' geological history into three distinct eras:

The first era, which lasted from about 4.6 billion years ago to 4 billion years ago, was a relatively wet one. The oldest rock—exposed by erosion, impact or faulting—showed the presence of clay minerals, such as chamosite and nontronite, that require abundant water, moderate temperatures and low acidity to form.

The next era was drastically different. Massive volcanic eruptions spewed sulfur into the atmosphere, turning the planet's moist and alkaline environment to a dry, acidic one. This period lasted form about 4 and 3.5 billion years and is evidenced by minerals such as gypsum and grey hematite, which were found in Meridiani and in Valles Marineris.

Minerals from the most recent era, which began about 3.5 billion years ago and continues to the present, show no evidence of forming with, or being altered by, liquid water. These iron-rich minerals, mostly ferric oxides, were found across most of the planet and reflect the cold, dry conditions that persist on Mars to this day.

The new study also revealed what is responsible for Mar's reddish hue: most likely, the researchers say, the red planet gets its color from tiny grains of red hematite or possibly maghemite, two minerals that are riddled with iron.

A target for future mission

If Martian life ever did exist, it could probably have only survived during the first era, the team reports. And evidence for that life is most likely to be found in the Syrtis Major volcanic plateau, in Nili Fossae and in the Marwth Vallis Regions, two regions rich in the clay minerals abundant during Mars' youth. The researchers added that these areas would make compelling targets for future lander missions.

· NASA announces discovery of evidence of water on Mars

· Water On Mars Could Sustain Human Colonies

· New Studies Question Mars Water Assumptions

· Rover Report Card: Prospect of Mars Life More Likely

Martian atmosphere

These artist renderings by Kees Veenenbos are based on real spacecraft data. Arsia Mons and the other volcanoes on the Tharsis. This image also shows the haze and dust of the Martian atmosphere. This image is one of the more subtle impressions. A first concept as the atmosphere has yet to be optimized to a better resolution. This volcano stands over 20 km above the surrounding plains, and is approximately 450 km in diameter at its base. The Arsia Mons summit caldera is over 120 km in diameter